


Not Until I've Had My Coffee

by graytheglowinggay



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Borderlands: Borderlands 3, Coffee, Coffee Addict Lorelei, Everyone is Trans, Ficlet, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Fluff without Plot, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Zer0 (Borderlands), I Don't Even Know, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Multi, Neopronouns, No Plot/Plotless, Nonbinary Lorelei (Borderlands), Nonbinary Zer0 (Borderlands), Nonsense, OT4, Other, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Rare Pairings, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trans Rhys (Borderlands), Trans Vaughn (Borderlands)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:16:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graytheglowinggay/pseuds/graytheglowinggay
Summary: The coffee machine is broken. Rhys and Vaughn try to keep Lorelei from finding out about this for as long as possible. At least, until Zer0 gets back.This mostly just exists to establish that I ship this OT4 until I can write something with more substance.
Relationships: Lorelei/Rhys (Borderlands), Lorelei/Rhys/Zer0 (Borderlands), Lorelei/Rhys/Zer0/Vaughn, Lorelei/Vaughn (Borderlands), Lorelei/Zer0 (Borderlands), Rhys/Vaughn (Borderlands), Rhys/Zer0 (Borderlands), Vaughn/Zer0 (Borderlands)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Not Until I've Had My Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic and in my headcanon, Lorelei and Zer0 are both enby. Lorelei uses xe/xem/xyr pronouns and Zer0 uses ey/em/eir pronouns. Lorelei is fine with any gendered terms (sister/brother, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc) while Zer0 prefers masc terms and uses he/him pronouns as aux pronouns.
> 
> It doesn't come up in this fic, but Rhys and Vaughn are also both trans bc I say so.

When most people say “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my cup of coffee”, it is, at best, a suggestion. With Lorelei, it is an active threat. Xe is downright terrifying when not caffeinated. Rhys has seen xem put a spoon through a bandit’s throat (how xe managed to do that is something that he doesn’t know nor frankly wants to know), and so he of all people refuses to do anything to get on xyr bad side before xe’s had coffee. At first, Zer0 was skeptical, but ey was quickly made aware of what a mistake that was. And Vaughn— well, despite his whole “bandit war chief” thing, he was very easily intimidated.

So, on the day the coffee maker broke, everyone was very, very afraid.

Zer0 discovered it before Lorelei woke up, which was perhaps a bullet dodged for everyone else, as they had time to prepare. Discussions were held in hushed tones and plans were drawn up. Vaughn and Rhys would keep Lorelei distracted while Zer0 tracked down coffee. What could go wrong?

* * *

Lorelei woke up to find xemself being spooned on both sides by two of xyr boyfriends; Rhys on xyr left, Vaughn on xyr right. Zer0 was nowhere to be found, but that wasn’t unusual. Ey was an early riser, and xe rarely saw em in the morning. The strange part of it was that Lorelei was the middle spoon. Xe distinctly remembered falling asleep on the outside of the bed, arms wrapped around Rhys’s waist.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Lorelei asked. Xe sat up in bed.

“What?” Vaughn replied. “Can’t two dudes just spoon their hot girlfriend without any kind of ulterior motive?” Rhys shot Vaughn a look. “Ulterior motive? Never heard of it. What’s an ulterior motive? That’s a pretty big fancy word that I’ve never heard of.”

“Ok, this is right suspicious,” Lorelei said. Xe got out of bed. “What happened? What did you blow up? Is Maliwan fucking back?”

“Nothing has blown up,” Rhys replied. He took Lorelei’s hand into his own and held it to his chest. “Why can’t we just hang out here? Get our cuddles on?”

“You’re definitely hiding something. Just spit it out. What is it?” Lorelei asked.

“The coffee maker is… broken,” Rhys said.

“What?!” Lorelei exclaimed. “What did you two wankers do to my baby?”

“Nothing! We didn’t do anything to it!” Vaughn replied. “Zer0 said it was broken when ey woke up.”

“So Zer0 broke it! And that’s why ey isn’t here! Ey’s on the run so ey won’t have to deal with my wrath!” Lorelei lept out of bed.

“Zer0 didn’t break the coffee machine either!” Rhys said. “Ey isn’t here because ey’s getting coffee for you.”

“Oh, well,” Lorelei paused. “Well, thanks to em, I guess,” Xe mumbled something.

“What was that, Lorelei?” Rhys asked. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”

“I’m sorry for getting angry at you guys,” xe said, just loudly enough to be heard.

“I suppose I will accept your gracious apology, oh great Lorelei, Commander of the Promethean Resistance,” Rhys said.

“Shut up,” Lorelei replied, laughing. Xe kissed Rhys’s forehead.

“Oh, so when he flatters you, he gets kisses,” Vaughn said, crossing his arms. Lorelei leaned over and kissed him as well.

Rhys grumbled until Lorelei gave him attention again. This went back and forth until there was a knock at the bedroom door and Zer0 entered, carrying a cardboard coffee caddy.

“See, I have returned. / I come bearing caffeine of / many types, for all,” ey said. Ey set the caddy down on the bed. 

“Iced latte, for Rhys. / Superblack, for Lorelei. / Matcha for myself.” As ey mentioned each drink, ey handed it to the person it was meant for.

Lorelei eagerly downed about a quarter of xyr drink in one sip. “Slag me, you’re the best, Zer0.” Lorelei gave the assassin a quick kiss on the cheek.

“What about me, Zer0?” Vaughn asked.

“For you, I didn’t / know what kind of drink you like. / So I got this thing.” Ey held up a large blended drink topped with copious amounts of whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

“What kind of crime against good taste is that?” Lorelei asked.

“Mega charge creamy / mocha kick-in-the-pants with / extra flavor blast,” Zer0 explained.

“I don’t think those are words, Zer0,” Rhys replied.

“Whatever it is, it’s fantastic,” Vaughn said.

“It’s a right mistake is what it is,” Lorelei replied.

“The barista said / most bandits order some strange / concoction like that,” ey said.

“Of course they do. All those bandits are the same. They show up screaming about the howl of the blood call or whatever nonsense, but you give them a cup of Arturian Superblack or some other decent drink and they fill it with sugar and skag syrup. No thank you.”

“That superblack stuff is so bitter! My gentle soul can’t handle it,” Vaughn replied.

“You’ve eaten varkid exoskeleton,” Rhys said.

“That was part of a ceremony. I needed to impress them,” Vaughn said.

“What does a varkid exoskeleton even taste like?” Lorelei asked.

Vaughn shuddered. “Like burnt leaves, except way more crunchy. Would not recommend.”

Lorelei downed the last of xyr coffee, leaned back, and stretched. “Well, that was a good cup of coffee. I’m gonna take a nap. You blokes can keep talking about this or whatever.” Lorelei pulled up the covers and closed xyr eyes.

“Is xe going back to sleep after drinking an entire cup of coffee?” Vaughn asked.

“Apparently,” Rhys replied.

“I saw Lorelei / once stab a Maliwan guy / and then take a nap,” Zer0 said. “This is hardly a / surprise when you know xem well. / Can sleep anywhere.”

“How lucky,” Vaughn said. “Well, I’m not gonna be sleeping any time soon, so who wants to play Bandit Connect Four?”

“What is Bandit Connect Four?” Rhys asked.

“Oh, it’s just like regular Connect Four except the game pieces are covered in spikes,” Vaughn said.

“Zer0, what do you think?”

“A test of one’s skill / in both strategy and not / getting sliced. I like,” Zer0 replied.

“Lorelei knows first aid, right?” Rhys asked.

“I think so, but xe’s asleep. There’s no way in hell I’d want to wake xem up,” Vaughn replied.

“All the more incentive to not get hurt,” Rhys said.

**Author's Note:**

> Take this little nonsense ficlet please. I don't know if anyone else ships this. Enjoy it. It took me so long to make sure that all of Zer0's dialogue was actually haiku. If anyone wants to give me prompts for this pairing for some reason please comment them.


End file.
